LA JOLLA, California — Actress Julianna Margulies, best known for her roles in the television series ER and The Good Wife, told Jewish Family Service’s inaugural Joan Jacobs Signature Brunch on Sunday that her work on a CBS special led to her sponsorship of a significant Holocaust Education Program.
She disclosed that she had never discussed salary with the television network and had assumed that her work would be gratis. After she received a large paycheck, she donated $100,000 to New York City’s Holocaust Museum, telling the museum’s staff “let’s roll.”
The eight-day program they launched in 2022 with her encouragement involved college students sharing true Holocaust stories with pupils in middle school and high school. Culminating the program for each cohort is transportation and a tour of the Holocaust Museum.
One Bronx sixth-grader asked a question that Margulies said was emblematic of why Holocaust education is so necessary. He asked, “Out of the six million Jews that were killed in the Holocaust, are any of them alive today?”
The boy’s class subsequently decided to perform in a play featuring the life-in-hiding of Anne Frank. The classroom drama played to an audience of 350 people, many of whom, like the boy, may not have known that some Jews had survived the Holocaust.
Ironically, in the two-part TV documentary Hitler: The Rise of Evil, Margulies portrayed Hitler’s friend Ernst Hanfstaengl’s wife Helene, who took a gun from Hitler’s hand and persuaded him not to commit suicide after the failed “Beer-Hall” Putsch of 1923.
At the bruncheon attended by over 400 people, Margulies promoted her memoir, Sunshine Girl: An Unexpected Life, which Jewish Family Service interviewer Laura Fink said was hard to put down. In it, Margulies discussed her pathway to success despite growing up in a dysfunctional family.
Joan Jacobs, whom the annual JFS brunch memorializes, died May 6, 2024. She was a wealthy patron of the arts. Her granddaughter, U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-San Diego), said Joan and her widowered husband, Qualcomm cofounder Irwin Jacobs, believed everyone should have access to great music and art.
Dana Toppel, the JFS CEO, welcomed the sell-out audience at the Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine. She said, “This event was Joan Jacobs’ vision, to bring together Jewish families and values … partnering with Jewish Family Service of San Diego to help families in need.”
During the proceedings, Elaine Galinson was honored with the Pauline Foster Leadership in Action Award, presented by Marcia Hazan and Karen Silberman.
*
Cailin Acosta is assistant editor of San Diego Jewish World.
Nice story, Cailin. I’m glad you had the opportunity to publish here..